


Living Memory

by BatmanWhoLaughss



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Growing Up, Parental Hera Syndulla, Past Character Death, Post-Canon, Post-Star Wars: Rebels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25738984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BatmanWhoLaughss/pseuds/BatmanWhoLaughss
Summary: The first time Jacen walks into the cockpit holding Kanan’s mask, Hera nearly faints.He’s no more than three when he finds it for the first time, hidden away in a drawer in what used to be Kanan’s bunk. Hera freezes, staring at her son holding a piece of his dead father with a silent question in his eyes.----Jacen, Hera, and Kanan, through the years.
Relationships: Hera Syndulla & Jacen Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus & Jacen Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Comments: 25
Kudos: 96





	Living Memory

**Author's Note:**

> This was super fun to write. I can't imagine that Jacen grew up doing anything less than idolizing his father, and I wanted to write about him finding ways to be close to Kanan despite never knowing him. And thus this fic was born. 
> 
> It’s really just my long, elaborate love letter to my favorite character, and his memory. I hope you like it! [also, for the purposes of this fic, it only takes Ahsoka and Sabine around a year to find Ezra]
> 
> Credit to HunterByDayWhovianByNight for the title

The first time Jacen walks into the cockpit holding Kanan’s mask, Hera nearly faints. 

He’s no more than three when he finds it for the first time, hidden away in a drawer in what used to be Kanan’s bunk. Hera freezes, staring at her son holding a piece of his dead father with a silent question in his eyes. And it isn’t until he says “Mommy, I feel sometin,” that she starts to cry, because she knows her son inherited his father’s power and he can feel some tiny piece of Kanan that’s still with them. When Jacen sees her tears he crawls into her lap, still holding the mask. She wraps him up in her arms, still taking gasping breaths and murmuring softly that she loves him, that his father loves him, and that he’s watching over them. 

* * *

When Jacen is six, he opens Kanan’s holocron, much to the delight of his uncle Ezra and his friend Luke. They find Hera running a diagnostic on the _Ghost_ , and Jacen squeals excitedly that there’s something she needs to see. She laughs, letting him drag her excitedly by the hand, and when she sees a hologram of Kanan lighting up the night sky, she forgets how to breathe for a moment.

Ezra lays a hand on her shoulder as she sways, staring wide-eyed at the sight in front of her. Jacen is sitting in front of the holocron holding Kanan’s mask, and hologram-Kanan is rubbing the back of his neck. She’s seen his face in dreams so many times since he died, but the memories pale in comparison to the real thing, clear as day. His eyes are still that brilliant blue she always loved so much, instead of the milky white she’d grown used to, and he still has that goatee she always used to tease him about. When he starts to speak, her knees buckle, and it’s only Ezra’s arm coming around her waist that keeps her upright. 

_Hi Hera. I don’t– I don’t know if you’re ever going to see this. I guess Ezra can show it to you after, if necessary, but… Look, I wanted to say, in case something ever happens to me–_ He swallows, and Hera can feel the tears running down her cheeks. _I love you, ya know? I didn’t tell you enough, but you’re- hells, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. And you and the kids… You’re going to_ win _. I know you are. The Empire doesn’t stand a chance._ Then he smiles, and Hera stops breathing again. _Goodbye, love. Keep fighting._

Hera feels Jacen’s small hand grab her own, feels him hand her Kanan’s mask as her brain struggles to process the world around her again. She doesn’t know when he had time to record this, in the midst of everything, but the emotion threatens to overwhelm her as Jacen squeezes her hand. She takes a deep breath, trying to stem the tears as she bends down to look at him, stroking his hair. She’s shown Jacen the mural on Lothal, but this is the first time he’s actually _heard_ Kanan’s voice, and she suddenly hates herself for that. She kisses Jacen on the forehead, handing him back the mask as he says, “Daddy loves us.”

She glances at Ezra as she murmurs back, “Yeah. Yeah, sweetheart, Daddy loves all of us.”

* * *

Jacen builds his lightsaber when he turns ten, under Ezra’s watchful eye. The first time Hera sees it, she can’t stop smiling, watching as he ignites it and the blue light captures his eager smirk _–_ _so_ like his father’s already _–_ at just the right angle. Hera isn’t sure if Ezra told him what Kanan’s saber looked like, but Jacen’s built his in a _very_ similar way. From Ezra’s knowing smirk, he sees the resemblance too. 

When she observes Jacen’s training for the first time a few weeks later, she cries again, shaking with silent sobs that she’s glad Jacen can’t see.

Ezra and Luke are both watching him, silently staring as Jacen stands in front of a circular bot. She recognizes it from when Kanan and Ezra used to run drills on the _Ghost_ ; it’s designed to help with deflecting blaster bolts, but the remote isn’t what catches her eye. 

No, what reduces her to tears is what Jacen is wearing as he deflects bolt after bolt with ease. He’s got Kanan’s old mask on his face, covering his eyes while he relies on the Force to guide his hands and Ezra murmurs soft words of encouragement over his shoulder. The grey is a stark contrast against the green of his hair, and the mask fits his long face _perfectly,_ as if it were made for him. Hera’s breath catches as she remembers a similar morning a _long_ time ago, when she’d walked in on Kanan training early in the morning in the _Ghost’s_ cargo bay. _Getting out of practice in your old age, love?_ He’d laughed, a deep full laugh, before tugging her towards him, letting her pull the mask off his face before pressing his lips to hers. 

Now, she watches her son lift the mask from his eyes, and she summons a smile as Jacen yells, “Mom, I did it!” 

_Oh, Kanan. I wish you could see this,_ Hera thinks as she closes her eyes _._ Then she feels a faint _blip_ on the edge of her awareness, just the slightest tug at her mind. It’s barely-there, so faint she nearly misses it. But when she feels it, she smiles, because she knows on some level, he’s still watching. 

* * *

Shortly after he turns thirteen, Jacen gets hurt while training. 

It’s not serious enough to be life-threatening, but he does have to spend a day inside a bacta tank. Ezra talks her ear off with apologies, promising to be more careful, but she shakes her head, murmuring that it’s okay. She’s not mad at him; she remembers the early days of Ezra’s own training, and Kanan’s stories about how the old Jedi used to do things. It could have been a lot worse. 

She stays by Jacen’s side until he comes out of the bacta. She’s holding Kanan’s mask as she sits with him, thinking about a different bacta tank, a long time ago on a backwater planet. A time when she found Kanan lying in a puddle of his own blood, with a knife in his back and a fluttery pulse. 

When Jacen wakes up, Ezra declares a moratorium on Jedi training for a while. Jacen grumbles, but one pointed look from Ezra at his leg makes him mumble a small, “Yes Master,” as he stares at the floor. Hera knows he’s upset; Jacen inherited his father’s stubborn streak, and it comes out in full force over the next week or so as he hangs around the _Ghost_ . He’s _cranky_ , frustrated that he’s stuck in a cast instead of being out in the field. 

On the fifth day of Jacen groaning in the common room, Hera decides she’s had enough. She grabs Kanan’s mask from inside Jacen’s room _–_ she’d given it to him a long time ago _–_ and finds him sitting at the small dejarik table. 

Jacen glances up as Hera takes a seat next to him. She sets the mask on the table as he raises an eyebrow. 

She grabs his hand. “I never told you about what happened when your father was blinded.” That gets his attention, and he sits up with wide eyes. She’d told him the basics, told him how Kanan was still a great Jedi despite losing his sight, and she knows Ezra’s told him stories as well. But she didn’t tell him how hard the recovery was, and she has a feeling that’s a story he needs to hear right now. This is the first time Jacen’s been knocked down without immediately getting back up again, and she knows he’s feeling ashamed of not bouncing back right away. He inherited _that_ from his father too. 

So she tells him everything, tells him about Maul and the Inquisitors and how hard Kanan worked to recover from that battle after the fact. She tells him how his aunt Sabine made the mask and what the symbols on it mean, and how long it took his father to get back into the fight afterwards. But she also tells him how amazing Kanan was, when he did recover. How he was able to fight just as well as he did when he could see, sometimes even better. She remembers him too, the way he dominated the battlefield as he moved like a force of nature itself. 

When Hera finishes, Jacen’s staring at her with wider eyes than ever, clutching his father’s mask against his chest. She smiles at him. “Everyone gets knocked down sometimes, kiddo, even the best of us. Your father learned that the hard way too.” She grabs his hand and squeezes it. “It’s okay to need some time before you get back on your feet, but you’ll get there. I know you will.” He glances down at the floor, still holding the mask against his chest. He’s silent for a moment, but when he looks back at her, there’s a look in his eyes like steel. The brilliant blue that mirrors Kanan’s so closely is fierce and piercing, and from the way he nods, Hera knows he understands. 

* * *

When Jacen turns sixteen, he leads his first mission. 

He’s in his room, getting ready to leave, and Hera’s trying desperately not to worry herself sick. But things are getting bad again, the way they were when the Empire was in power, and Ezra can see it too; he’s been spending more time with her lately, trying to reassure her that Jacen is going to be alright. _He’s not going alone. He’ll have a team with him. Remember the kinds of crazy stuff we used to get up to? This is a milk run._

It helps, but only barely.

Then it’s time for him to go. Hera’s in the cockpit of the _Ghost_ , which is currently parked in the middle of the Resistance base. She’s trying to remember an old breathing exercise that Kanan taught her ages ago, and she feels an eerie sense of deja vu from the day of Ezra’s first solo mission. 

Then Jacen walks into the cockpit to say goodbye, and she can’t stop herself from bursting into tears. 

He’s standing in the doorway. His mouth was open to say something, but he closes it when he sees her crying. The dark blue shirt he’s wearing clashes horribly with his dark green hair and makes the coppery tone of his skin stand out even further. His saber is hanging from his belt, along with a blaster, and his hair, almost down to his shoulders now, is hanging loose around his face. He looks so much like Kanan that she feels like she’s staring at a _ghost_ , like it’s 20 years earlier and they’re back in the early days of their partnership. 

The tears fall faster as she stares at his right shoulder, where he’s wearing a pauldron that looks homemade. But what makes her freeze is the ever-recognizable piece of metal that’s affixed firmly to his shoulder, the grey a stark contrast to the rest of his clothes. He repainted the jaig eyes, so they shine bright gold against the grey. She suspects that he asked Sabine for help. It’s beautiful, and _so_ achingly familiar to the pauldron Kanan used to wear, all those years ago.

Jacen looks down at his shoulder when he sees Hera staring, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I thought _–_ I thought it was fitting. It’s like a part of him’s with me.” Hera’s still silently crying, frozen to the spot and wondering when her son grew up so fast. “Mom?” he asks, when he sees she still hasn’t moved. He takes a step towards her. “Mom, are you okay?” 

It breaks the spell she’s under, and she stands up, flinging her arms around his waist. He’s taller than her now- just as tall as Kanan was- so she buries her head against his chest as she nods. “I’m just so _proud_ of you, love.” And she _is,_ she loves him and the man he’s become, even as much as it makes her ache. “Your father would be so proud of you too.” 

“I know, Mom.” Jacen pulls back to look her in the eye. “I know he’s out there somewhere, in the Force. Sometimes I think I can feel him, so this way… you’re both with me.” And then he shows her his wrist, where he’s wearing the bracelet she made for him shortly after his first birthday. It’s a Twi-lek custom, to make something for one’s child shortly after birth, and the fact that he still wears it sparks another wave of tears. She stares up at him with a look of awe, before hugging him again, even tighter this time.

And when she lets him go, watching him walk off the _Ghost_ and board his X-Wing, some of her worry ebbs away. Because Jacen Syndulla Jarrus is carrying both his parents with him, bringing the best of both of them into everything he does. And Hera knows that Kanan is looking out for their son, too, wherever he is. And as long as Kanan’s watching over him, Hera knows that he’s going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is so so appreciated, as always :)


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